Independent dark ambient oriented label Droned Artworks reinterpret escapism in particular mediums. Worth to check the themes of dreamscape on a canvas with infinite options. It's been a long time to see that type of tones and colors gathered and mended.
Every bit of artwork drifts you on a separate surface. Album covers, hand-drawn band logos & tabletop games are some of the subcategories you can look through and figure out. I'll drop the link of the official homepage very end of the interview for you to look over.
Greetings to you, Waclaw. Thank you kindly for allowing the interview. Please introduce
yourself.
Waclaw: Greetings to you as well and thanks for having me here. I am an illustrator from the Czech Republic, working especially in the darker fields, like making album covers for Doom Metal or Dungeon Synth bands, or for dark fantasy and grim dark indie board games.
I am not fully professional in it, because I am a bit afraid of the unsure living of an artist (my partner is a full-time artist and gallerist, so I know what I am talking about), so partly I am also a Czech language proof-reader and creative writing lecturer. (Again, in Czech, so pardon me my bad English, please).
The portfolio you hold has captivating illustrations. What is your core motivation and influence?
Waclaw: From the new artists, it is names like Simon Bisley, Adrian Smith, John Blanche, and many, many more. From the old masters, I love especially Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Brueghel (Well, they were two Pieters, older and younger). And a special place in my heart and my motivation palette has my art teacher Teodor Buzu, who is especially a great master in the field of abstract watercolor painting.
My own style is influenced by him very much, even though he usually does not do anything dark or of the fantasy genre. He always smiled telling me that my style is painting “smiling corpses” all the time.
Illustrations and the color palette that you perform and contemplate are excessively vivid and
void. In your workshop, are you experimenting various formulas to find these divergent match of
colors?
Waclaw: Definitely! In fact, almost every painting of mine (Except maybe some very specific custom work) is an experiment a bit. I developed some basic techniques that work for me over the years, but there are no dogmas at all, I am trying new approaches and media all the way, based mainly on what I have by hand at the moment – for example I did not have inks lately, and was too lazy to go buy them, so I used acrylics instead, and as it is a different media, it brings different technique and different look of the images.
I have inspected the tabletop games of War Claw Games and I am curious about how did you
come up with an idea to design a tabletop game other than your drawings?
Waclaw: I always loved board games as a kid (Though we had quite a limited number of them here in the Czech Republic back then, as it was just recovering from decades of socialistic supremacy that ended in 1989) and I liked to write amateur gamebooks just for me and for fun, but I never tried to design any game in my adulthood until around 2020, when a guy wanted to commission art from me for his board game.
The game was still open for new ideas and I had creative freedom, so I could also come up with my own ideas about what creatures and mechanics could there be in the game and so what should I paint for him. But when I started this process of thinking about the game, so huge amount of ideas kept coming to me concerning not only the setting but also game mechanics, that I saw it might maybe work if I designed some game myself. People were also asking about prints from me that time, but I felt a print is a thing with low added value, so I came to an idea to make prints where there would be also a small game on their back for example.
But again, so many ideas kept coming to me that I had to left the idea that the games could be only a small added value – I saw that they must be a thing on their own. Btw, the problem of too many ideas (and too many unfinished personal projects then) is my small curse ever. I come up with like one new game concept each week and it is so hard to work on the old ones when new thrills keep coming.
You have collaborated and participated in Mork Borg projects with illustrations and covers.
Could you describe the significance of Mork Borg for you?
Waclaw: Mork Borg is super important for me since I discovered it. It is like a third branch of my client work: I can say that I work mostly for Doom Metal, Dungeon Synth and… Mork Borg! And I love it.
Given that you have a chance to construct your corporeality, would it be same as the depiction
of your drawings or a plot-twist?
Waclaw: Well, my drawings are mostly full of violence or darkness, but personally, I hate such things (Especially can’t withstand that there can exist a thing like intentional torture in the world, and that is maybe why it also strangely fascinates me), so I would rather let artists like Bob Ross to design a world for me. Just joking, because I do not like realistic stuff too much (Though I admire the craft), so it would have to be something from let’s say Towe Jansson or Ulla Thynell, a world not too dark, but full of wonders that wait to be discovered.
As we all entered the life arena in a human form, what is your true form?
Waclaw: As I have a philosophic formal education (Yeah, I did not study art, just took art lectures) and my concern about these matters is constant and deep, it is hard for me to answer a way that would be any interesting. Even though from my pictures it may seem differently, my views on such topics are very sober and kinda boring I think (compared to some fantasy-romantic ideas one may have).
We would for example have to determine first if there really is some “we” that could enter anything before the human form is established, respectively if this something can be called “we” and if it can, then if anything like “me” or “I” could be distinguished from it.
Your final words please.
Waclaw: Thanks again so much for having me here, a big pleasure and honor for me!
Credits
Droned Artworks official store page: warclawgames
Droned Artworks art related official page: dronedartworks
Official Instagram page of Droned Artworks: @dronedartworks